{"id":389043,"date":"2018-12-13T20:33:18","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T19:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/a-planet-in-loss-mode\/"},"modified":"2018-12-13T20:33:18","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T19:33:18","slug":"a-planet-in-loss-mode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/a-planet-in-loss-mode\/","title":{"rendered":"a Planet in Loss Mode"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<div id=\"attachment_107901\" style=\"width: 520px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-107901\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/12\/Climate_March_1123_34327144666.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"339\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/12\/Climate_March_1123_34327144666.jpg 510w, https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/12\/Climate_March_1123_34327144666-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/12\/Climate_March_1123_34327144666-768x510.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo Source Edward Kimmel | <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>If you\u2019ve been paying attention to what\u2019s happening to the nonhuman life forms with which we share this planet, you\u2019ve likely heard the term \u201cthe Sixth Extinction.\u201d If not, look it up.\u00a0 After all, a superb environmental reporter, Elizabeth Kolbert, has already gotten a Pulitzer Prize for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1250062187\/counterpunchmaga\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">writing a book<\/a> with that title.<\/p>\n<p>Whether the sixth mass species extinction of Earth\u2019s history is already (or not quite yet) underway may still be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/science\/archive\/2017\/06\/the-ends-of-the-world\/529545\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">debatable<\/a>, but it\u2019s clear enough that something\u2019s going on, something that may prove even more devastating than a mass of species extinctions: the full-scale winnowing of vast populations of the planet\u2019s invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants. Think of it, to introduce an even broader term, as a wave of \u201cbiological annihilation\u201d that includes possible species extinctions on a mass scale, but also massive species die-offs and various kinds of massacres.<\/p>\n<p>Someday, such a planetary winnowing may prove to be the most tragic of all the grim stories of human history now playing out on this planet, even if to date it\u2019s gotten far less attention than the dangers of climate change.\u00a0 In the end, it may prove more difficult to mitigate than global warming.\u00a0 Decarbonizing the global economy, however hard, won\u2019t be harder or more improbable than the kind of wholesale restructuring of modern life and institutions that would prevent species annihilation from continuing.<\/p>\n<p>With that in mind, come&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/12\/13\/biological-annihilation-a-planet-in-loss-mode\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo Source Edward Kimmel | CC BY 2.0 If you\u2019ve been paying attention to what\u2019s happening to the nonhuman life forms with which we share this planet, you\u2019ve likely heard the term \u201cthe Sixth Extinction.\u201d If not, look it up.\u00a0 After all, a superb environmental reporter, Elizabeth Kolbert, has already gotten a Pulitzer Prize for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-389043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}